Official Sony Article is now up: PlayStation 5 Achieves Milestone of 50 Million Units Sold to Consumers - Sony Interactive Entertainment

PlayStation sales and blockbuster games propel console market back to growth (ft.com)

"Sony said it hit the 50mn sales milestone on December 9, 161 weeks after the PS5 launched. This compares with the 160 weeks it took the PS4 to reach the same point after its release."

"Eric Lempel, head of global business at Sony Interactive Entertainment, said that with supply issues “solved”, its latest console was now on track to outsell PlayStation 4"

So the PS5 as of week ending December 2nd was under 150m, and as of week ending December 9th is over 150m. Slightly overtracked here as the first week of december for PS5 is likely over 1m and the PS5 shouldn't have passed the PS4 in sales just yet.

Ampere is estimating 22.5m PS5 sales this year, 7.6m Xbox Series and 16.4m Nintendo Switch. Bit weird considering the year isn't over but they've apparently already come to these figures. All of these figures are relatively close to what VGChartz estimates are likely to be once December sales are added.

"PS5 sales grew about 65 per cent to 22.5mn units this year, according to Ampere estimates, while sales of the latest Xbox fell about 15 per cent to 7.6mn. Sales of Nintendo’s Switch, which debuted in 2017 and is likely to be replaced by a new console next year, fell 18 per cent to 16.4mn."

What does this mean for the financial year for Sony and Nintendo, are they on track for 25M and 15M respectively as forecasted? Microsoft is a bit different with their FY being tracked to June and with no forecast.

"Player excitement for PS5 is higher than ever making this the biggest November for PlayStation consoles sold through to consumers."

Biggest November ever for Playstation.

https://sonyinteractive.com/en/press-releases/2023/playstation-5-50-million-sold/

Sony are likely to ship about 23-24m so just miss their goal. Nintendo shouldn't have a problem shipping 15m and will possibly slightly exceed this.

The Ampere estimates of 22.5m this calendar year seem about right to me for PS5, the first 3 months of 2024 may be slightly stronger than 2023 due to the stacked exclusive line-up over the next 3 months... or it may be around the same as last year. So I'm predicting around 22.5m-23m sell-through for the fiscal year meaning Sony cannot meet their 25m shipment target without shipping 2m+ more consoles than they sell-through. I expect Sony will ship around 23-24m this fiscal year, just missing their target.

Nintendo I am expecting to sell-through about 15.5m this fiscal year. The first three months of 2024 are almost certainly going to be down YoY compared to the first three months of 2023.

While Sony may not reach the 25m target, 23-24m would still be an astonishing achievement. The highest production shipments in one year for a PlayStation console ever was the PS2 with 22.52m for the PS2. This is likely to be the best fiscal year for a PlayStation console ever.

VGChartz had it as the 2nd best ever, barely missing out to the PS4 2015. So looks like it's the other way around and the PS5 took the crown. Fantastic result.

VGChartz current estimates

PS4 Nov 2015 - 3.557m
PS5 Nov 2023 - 3.545m

I was hoping we would get announcement for 50M soon. Congrats on Sony and the PS5 now only being 1 week behind PS4. And a good chance it takes the lead by the end of the year. 

VGChartz estimates have the PS5 at 48.93M as of November 25, so we are 1.07M away from topping 50M. The PS5 very likely sold more than that in the first week of December (week ending December 2), so we have very likely overtracked the PS5, though probably not by much. But we will have a much better idea once more December data starts coming in next month. 

It would be very hard for the Switch to meet these Ampere's estimates, it would need to be just 5% down YoY in December but it's currently 20%-40% down depending on the market.

PS5 seems more reasonable but still on target for a miss of the 25M forecast unless it's around 50% up YoY in Q4.

Hmmm. You're right looking at the numbers again Ampere do have it a bit high compared to VGChartz. I am expecting December to be better for November than December in terms of decline but I'm only expecting around 3.2m, which would bring 2023 Switch sales up to 15.7m using VGChartz numbers. Still even with that sell-through should stay above 15m for this fiscal year. Perhaps Nintendo ship less than they sell-through this late in the consoles life, I do not know.

Regardless I think Nintendo should be very close to their 15m shipped target whether that is above or below.

I appreciate that being pointed out. We are a little over 11K too low for PS5. Orrrr more likely have PS4 a little too high in November 2015. As we have either have PS5 hitting 50M in the beginning of the week ending December 9 or the previous week. So PS5 is either fine or slightly overtracked. 

Edit: If we do have the PS5 slightly overtracked it would need to be adjusted down between August to October as it hit 40M in week 2 of July and November needs to be the best ever November for a PlayStation console. 

Though we might be okay and not overtracked. We will know once December data starts rolling in next month.

Via @Machina - Historically consoles selling around 1.4m in the last week of Nov then did the following the next week:

1. Switch 2022 - 1.29m > 0.91m
2. Switch 2021 - 1.41m > 1.06m
3. PS4 2018 -1.57m > 0.87m
4. PS4 2017 - 1.62m > 0.80m
5. PS4 2016 - 1.27m > 0.99m
6. PS4 2015 - 1.51M > 0.79m

Yeah, I think they should, unless the Q4 Switch drops are very large everywhere (>40% down YoY).